


The Baker Street Flat

by challengeaccepted, M (challengeaccepted)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 20:29:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/challengeaccepted/pseuds/challengeaccepted, https://archiveofourown.org/users/challengeaccepted/pseuds/M
Summary: The Lake House crossover.John’s pretty sure it’s a sign of mental imbalance -- of which he has been all too frequently accused of late -- that he is actually entertaining the possibility that he is communicating with a total stranger two years in the future via the magic mail slot on the door of his new flat. He certainly won’t be mentioning this at next week’s session.





	The Baker Street Flat

**Author's Note:**

> First posted here: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/2262.html?thread=2876118#t2876118

John’s pretty sure it’s a sign of mental imbalance -- of which he has been all too frequently accused of late -- that he is actually entertaining the possibility that he is communicating with a total stranger two years in the future via the magic mail slot on the door of his new flat. He certainly won’t be mentioning this at next week’s session. 

On his way out the door to interview for a part-time position at a local surgery, another meeting where he has no intention of mentioning his most recent hobby, he drops a fairly sarcastic note 

_If you’re really from 2012, is the world about to end?_

and tries to put the whole thing out of his head. Dr. John Watson, competent medical professional, embarking on his civilian life, _not_ indulging childish fantasies with a mystery correspondent who must be sneaking by his apartment when he’s not home. And somehow breaking inside to clear his own notes from the floor. 

He kind of prefers the time travel idea over that possibility, actually. Logic and reason be damned. 

_Check again in December,_ the reply reads, when John returns home and peels it from the sole of his boot. _For now, it doesn’t appear so. One would hope the apocalypse would be less dull._

John smiles grimly and fishes a pen from his jacket pocket. _I don’t think that is usually one’s primary hope about the apocalypse, actually._ He adds, _And, at least in comparison to the end of the world, isn’t letter-writing dull?_

He slips the paper through the slot, and it’s only because his phone rings, telling him that he got the position and when to report in, that he is standing there to hear the rustle of paper as the next note falls to the floor. 

_With most correspondents, it is. Terribly so. This situation, however, arouses a certain curiosity in me, especially if you are lying._

John blinks several times, steps outside to scan the seemingly deserted street, checks his phone to be sure he isn’t losing time, then shrugs. _Damn it all. You seem the sort to find a potential mind game more interesting than magic,_ he scrawls, shaken, before heading up to his flat for some much-needed tea. 

\--- 

Sherlock scoffs aloud for the fourteenth time that morning since finding the scrap of paper on the careful pile of mail Mrs. Hudson left outside his door. “Really, John?” he says aloud, pushing away the still uneaten toast Mrs. Hudson had also left him, just this once. “Magic?” 

_While one cannot entirely discount the existence of magic, I would think a number of quantum explanations would occur first to a man of science, Dr. Watson._

_Enclosed is a London Stock Exchange report for tomorrow, 2010. If you need further evidence that what is happening here is, indeed, happening, such evidence can be provided. For my part, I am disappointed to report that I believe you are telling the truth about the time in which you are living. Your stationery is a limited run from a handmade crafts store, and unlikely to look so flawless and unfaded unless properly stored away from sun and dust, a precaution your handwriting tells me you are not fastidious enough to take. It was clearly purchased for you, quite recently, by a woman who would like to hear from you a bit more often than she does. Not a woman who is living with you currently, or she would likely be handling your mail. An estranged relative, because a romantic interest would be more direct. I assume sister, as this particular shop is located on a street of rather trendy shops, most of which bill themselves as boutiques; not exactly a spot older women shop._

_In addition to the information I have been able to deduce about you, I have also done several searches for your name. No Facebook page or other social media, and an empty blog that may or may not be yours, based on limited evidence, so little to gather about your personality there, other than perhaps a desire for privacy, or either an intentional or a situational lack of friends, family, or even acquaintances with whom to communicate. Other than myself, of course._

_I’ve also gathered some information about your military service and limited civilian career -- congratulations on the new job you’re beginning today -- so to be fair, I will tell you a bit about myself..._

A little while later, Sherlock finishes his letter, feeling oddly pleased. He performs some unspeakable experiments -- unspeakable if only because no one else would understand if he tried to explain -- and ignores a few texts from Mycroft. It’s evening by the time he thinks to look downstairs for a letter, and the one he finds makes him frown at first. 

_Don’t congratulate me yet. Rubbish first day. Stationery’s from sister’s future ex-wife rather than sister, but brilliant nonetheless. Less impressive was all the spying. Improper use of police resources? Also, “consulting detective” isn’t a real job, I checked. I’m sure you’ll say that it’s only not a job yet, until the world recognizes your genius. Can you tell I visited your website? You’re a rather arrogant sort, though I can’t say it’s not justified._

“Of course it’s justified,” Sherlock says to the air. It’s about time someone admits it, he thinks. And then he smiles. 

\--- 

Weeks have gone by, and John catches himself smiling fondly at the letters, always signed with a swirling _SH_ . He goes days without one at times, when Sherlock deigns to take a case or falls into one of his moods. John isn’t entirely sure what sparks these times or exactly what they consist of, just that Sherlock will occasionally begin a letter with something like, _Spent many days playing violin, nothing interesting to report. Apologies for the delay._ John doesn’t know whether he’s projecting or whether, perhaps, Sherlock is as lonely and troubled as John sometimes reads between the lines of his letters. 

John’s not so terribly lonely these days. His supervisor, Sarah, is a wonderful woman, beautiful and funny, and she doesn’t pry. Sherlock doesn’t write for a week, and John takes the time to get a bit lost in her. She laughs and holds his hand at the cinema, and he thinks to himself that he could play this part: the sane boyfriend, maybe even the sane husband, in a quiet and ordinary life. 

But when he gets inside after dinner with Sarah, he finds, on the back of a page ripped from an anatomy text, an accusatory _You haven’t written._

He sighs and steps back outside. He’s taken to carrying a pen always. _I believe it was your turn._

He waits, feeling ridiculous -- Sherlock’s note could have been hours ago -- but sure enough, a near-immediate reply: _You usually check, try to cajole me out of my moods, with your logic puzzles from the paper and boring patient stories._ The subtext, John thinks: You fail, but I like that you try. He imagines Sherlock sitting at the bottom of the stairs all evening, waiting. He probably brought a book. 

_Been busy,_ John writes. 

_A girl,_ Sherlock states. 

_A woman,_ John corrects. He feels ridiculous, ducking in and out of his door on a winter evening, irritating Mrs. Hudson, who told him last time he spent an evening this way that she would charge him a larger share of the heating costs if he did it again. 

_Get inside,_ Sherlock writes, not quite surprising John by being on the same wavelength. _It’s about to snow._ After a moment, a scarf is fed through the mail slot, and John laughs. It’s a very nice scarf, certainly worth more than the coat he’s wearing. It seems to say that all is forgiven. 

_Good night, then, Sherlock,_ John writes. He steps inside and locks the door, and he pauses to admire the scarf long enough to receive a final message for the evening. 

_I know you’re still there. Go to sleep._

John knows by now that Sherlock himself barely sleeps -- and that night, John doesn’t sleep much either. 

\--- 

Sherlock is smiling to himself when he gets out of the cab, adjusting his new scarf, pleased to think that somewhere, sometime, in another life, John has his old one. 

Donovan immediately asks, cheekily, whether he’s getting laid. He says something snotty in response about her and Anderson. He barely registers the exchange as he strides to where Lestrade is standing near the body. He gives the scene a first glance and waits for Lestrade to explain why he asked him here so urgently, what the special circumstances are. Instead, Lestrade clears his throat a few times. Sherlock looks up at him sharply. 

"You lied,” he accuses, suddenly sure. “This is a simple mugging. The killer left nothing behind at the scene, and the victim is an ordinary man. Have you at last seen a series of similar homicides recently?” 

“No,” Lestrade admits. “But Sherlock, you must see something that can help us to identify the culprit.” 

“He’s no mastermind,” Sherlock declares, “nor a practiced killer. He required three blows to subdue his victim, despite the element of surprise and the victim’s physical disadvantage. Sloppy. Probably a junkie looking for a fix.” He meets Lestrade’s eyes, just for a moment, then looks away. “There’s nothing of interest here.” 

Lestrade says something, starts to tell Sherlock the victim’s occupation or name or some other mundane detail, but Sherlock is already heading for the cab. He’d asked the driver to wait, in case this happened again. He directs the driver back to Baker Street. 

Since he was a boy, a voice in some part of Sherlock’s brain has narrated his life back to him, rephrasing his movements, adding adjectives and adverbs to his actions. More and more of late, that voice has spoken itself as letters composed to John. _A dull investigation, a routine death, the ruse of something more, drew me away from you this evening --_ and he stops short at that, silences the voice, because an evening on the front stoop isn’t the same as true company, and why had Donovan thought he was sleeping with anyone? 

He suspects the answer, but he reserves judgment just yet. If his suspicions are correct, they require a solution, but he tries to put it out of his mind. He succeeds only in driving himself to spend a night playing the violin, eyes shut tight against the stash box lying beside John’s letter on the counter. 

\--- 

John is running late for work, and when he comes inside, stamping snow from his shoes as gingerly as he can to accommodate his bad leg, Sarah says, “Thank god you’re here.” 

“Why?” he asks, not quite worried. She seems more exasperated than upset. 

“Difficult patient here under police custody. I put them in an exam room. I asked the Detective Inspector to just take the man to the hospital, but he said it was all he could do to get him here.” At John’s raised eyebrow, she adds, “It’s a head laceration, probably just a few stitches, but he’s been fighting to leave since he got here.” 

John has had his experience stitching up the belligerent wounded, so he takes a breath and pushes open the door to his office. A tall, thin man is sitting with gauze pressed to his head, glaring at the officer standing against the far wall. “You wouldn’t,” the man says, glaring, barely sparing a glance a John as he enters. 

“I would,” the officer contradicts him. “You’re lucky I’m keeping you from the inevitable tox screen.” 

“You want me to owe you,” the man declares. 

“Excuse me,” John tries to interject. 

“Yes.” The officer rolls his eyes. “That’s all it is, nothing at all about your well-being or potential. You have me all figured out, Sherlock.” 

“Sherlock?” John repeats, and the man in the chair finally turns to look at John. “Sherlock Holmes?” 

“I told you that you’re getting quite the reputation,” Lestrade tells him. “I’m going for coffee, and if you’re not here when I get back, I’ll have you arrested. I don’t imagine you’ll make it far without passing out anyway.” And with that, Lestrade is out the door, leaving John to face an angry man who just happens to be the younger self of the best friend he’s made in all his months in London. 

He feels a bit giddy, which is probably not the best way to approach this particular patient, who has absolutely no idea who he is. He takes a breath, tries to calm his heart. “Can I take a look?” 

“Given the alternative, I don’t see that I can reasonably refuse.” 

John motions Sherlock into the chair nearer to the sink in the corner of the room -- he can’t keep his hands sterile if he needs to walk far enough to require the cane -- and prepares a suture kit. He finishes with the worst of it, and it is only when he is standing before a seated Sherlock, gently cleaning blood from Sherlock’s oddly beautiful face, that he finally speaks. 

“You’re much too--” He hesitates, then settles on “--talented to be using drugs, Sherlock.” 

“I’m here because I was pushed down a flight of stairs while performing Inspector Lestrade’s job in his stead,” Sherlock explains. “Whatever I may still have in my system has little bearing on the matter.” 

John’s smile is grim but fond, a combination he would never have thought possible before Sherlock Holmes became a part of his life. He picks up a clean piece of gauze and cleans the last of the blood from Sherlock’s cheek. It is as much a caress as anything, and Sherlock meets his eyes sharply. 

“Doctor,” Sherlock says, but something in John’s eyes must actually silence the great Sherlock Holmes, because Sherlock simply tilts his head, curious, and John slips his hand from Sherlock’s cheek to the back of his neck, feels the tension there increase and then fall away. Sherlock’s eyes fall closed, like a subdued and contented feline. John’s hand squeezes gently, and Sherlock looks up again, wary. “Why?” 

He seems more confused by the affection itself than by the inappropriateness of the situation, which says a lot to John about this strange man, so alone. 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” John says helplessly, and Sherlock nods as if that were any kind of real answer, and John presses his forehead to the uninjured side of Sherlock’s own, breathes in a scent that has long since faded from his scarf. He is surprised and grateful that Sherlock is allowing this invasion. He wonders whether drugs aren’t playing a role after all, or perhaps Sherlock can somehow feel what John feels. 

What John hasn’t exactly, in so many words, owned up to feeling. 

He presses his lips to Sherlock’s hair just in time for Lestrade to return with Sarah in tow. John cringes, because this is bad in so many regards. Lestrade pays cash for services rendered, and Sherlock looks a bit lost as he follows him out the door. 

“John,” Sarah begins. She seems to stop, reconsider, try again. “You understand that in this office--” 

“I know,” John interrupts. He holds back a sigh. 

She nods. “Okay. Then, is this. I mean, are men.” She smiles and sighs at the same time, and John wonders whether this is how he looks when he is reading a particularly difficult letter from Sherlock. “Is this why you haven’t been more serious about us?” she asks finally. 

It’s news to him that he hasn’t been serious enough about Sarah, and whatever deficiencies he may have as a partner aren’t due to his preferences, as she seems to be suggesting. But they may very well have something to do with Sherlock, he decides, who makes him laugh and robs his breath in words, never mind by his presence, his eyes so clear. 

_You never mentioned the drugs in your letters,_ he writes that evening, sitting at the sandwich shop next to his flat because if he doesn’t get this written and through that mail slot while he’s still angry and bewildered, then he might not do something stupid, and he really wants to for once. _You could have mentioned that you are, or at least were, a common criminal, so desperate for attention that if you can’t get it by sounding intelligent, you’ll take it from any stranger who shows you kindness._

He’s not even sure what he’s writing, but he feels stupid and hurt, and he regrets the words almost as soon as they’re out of his hand. He drinks two beers too many and falls asleep on the sofa waiting for the inevitable response. 

_So that was you that day, the doctor with the cane and the gentle hands. And the other doctor must have been your woman, who, judging by your anger, has broken off your relationship today. As for your insinuations about my proclivities, I’ll have you know, regarding the drugs, that I have been clean for nearly a year now, despite temptations and dark days; and, regarding the implication that I’m a whore, that you touched far more of me and for much longer that day than I had or have allowed anyone in many years._

John is hungover and tired and sorry when he reads this. He’s also on forced paid leave for the next three days, while he “gets his head together.” Mrs. Hudson is away for the day to visit her sister, and he can spend as much of the day as he pleases sitting by the door, trying to make this right. 

_We should arrange to meet,_ John writes, cutting to the chase. He doubts Sherlock would acknowledge or appreciate an apology even if John could bring himself to offer one. _Tonight._

The reply comes about an hour later. John hopes that Sherlock has slept in, taken care of himself, but he knows that’s probably not the case. He unfolds the note with apprehension. 

_It wouldn’t be you meeting me. It would be two years from now for you. I sincerely doubt that you would even remember._ Or still want to come, John reads, although the words aren’t actually on the page. 

_We mere mortals can still remember dates, Sherlock,_ he writes back. _We have phones and computers, and receptionists when we’re lucky enough to be employed. I’m just asking for dinner. You must eat._

_Don’t assume, John,_ Sherlock writes. _But very well. February 29, 2012. Angelo’s._

John pulls out his phone, scrolls forward twenty-four months, taps in the date. _I’ll see you tonight,_ he promises. 

\--- 

Sherlock feels nervous and delighted in spite of himself. To think that that had been John, his John, that day at the surgery, the man he’d tried to forget because he had sparked some feeling that Sherlock hadn’t known where to file. To think that he might have time, now, to touch those hands and incorporate this person, these possibilities into his life. 

A waiter brings a candle to the table, distracting Sherlock from his careful watch out the window. He is a little resentful that he must be putting off these obvious signals, that everyone here tonight who knows him at all is waiting to see who could possibly have turned Sherlock sideways like this. 

And John never shows. 

Sherlock plays the violin for two days and doesn’t eat, doesn’t open the door to Mrs. Hudson, is finally only roused from his misery by Lestrade. He pounds on the door and, once Sherlock mutely lets him inside, complains that Sherlock hasn’t answered a single text or voicemail. He explains a new case, a murder in a locked room, Illuminati symbols and false identification and something about a member of Parliament. 

“The symbols are likely fakes,” Sherlock declares, “copied from a film or book and added for dramatic effect and to obscure the killer’s true identity.” But he sighs and puts on proper clothing for the first time in days. On his way outside, he picks up a small pile of John’s notes -- and why Mrs. Hudson never wondered at Sherlock’s receiving mail at odd times of day and often without envelopes, he doesn’t know. Perhaps she’d grown accustomed to it when the same had happened to John. 

He reads the notes on the way to the crime scene, and he rereads them once he determines the order in which they were written. 

_How was dinner? How did I look? Am I fantastically wealthy?_

and 

_No word, then? Have we been shagging all day and night?_

and then 

_That was a joke, Sherlock._

A few pleas and questions followed, but Sherlock puts them aside. He knows that the second note was only in part a joke; it had been as much nervous hope as anything, he was sure. He had seen John’s interest years before; though it had lacked context then, he recognizes it now for what it was. An idea he himself entertained the previous evening, though not in much detail. A more vague thought: to have John for more than a few brief minutes, and to know him for who he was, to enfold him and take him home. Sherlock could never have been the one to wait, he lacks the patience, but he had hoped John would wait for him. 

He realizes that Lestrade has been speaking to him. “I solved that last case I consulted you on.” 

“All by yourself, even,” Sherlock says, his instinct to be cruel, even as bruised as he feels today. “I trust it was as uninspiring as I promised.” Lestrade shakes his head and doesn’t try again to make conversation. 

Sherlock spends the next three days running all across London, solving one assassination and foiling another, and when he finally has no choice but to return to Baker Street, he puts pen to paper. 

_You didn’t show. Surely you’ve married in that time, or started a practice elsewhere -- the quiet life of a country doctor, perhaps. You have something better in your future, John._

Sherlock shuts the door quietly, stands tall, and walks resolutely up the stairs. 

\--- 

No no no. 

_There must have been an emergency,_ John reasons, _or I couldn’t find a cab, or my phone broke. Let’s try again. Tonight._

John’s determined, he knows he can remember this, he wants it enough now that he’s certain that in two years’ time he will not have forgotten. He’s just waiting for Sherlock to confirm or, as the hours wear on, perhaps even to tell John how the evening went; he wouldn’t be surprised if Sherlock assumed John would take silence as confirmation of a future meeting. 

Instead, he finds a note in careful script, as if copied from an earlier, rejected attempt. 

_My dear John,_  
_I’ve accepted a life of solitude. I’d entertained other possibilities during our acquaintance, and I thank you for your companionship, of sorts. I know now what to expect of the years to come._  
_You have been the truest friend I’ve known._  
_\- SH_

__

John feels somehow defeated. All he can think to write is _Please,_ and he does so almost numbly, with no real expectation of results. 

__

No other letters arrive, though John checks every day until he leaves Baker Street. He writes to Harry instead, who seems endlessly grateful to have her brother back, though she questions his chosen mode of communication. He reminds her that she was the one to suggest letters in the first place. 

__

Time passes, and he still stops by occasionally to ask Mrs. Hudson whether any letters have arrived for him. She tells him to trust the royal mail to forward things properly, but she never seems to really mind the company, and she serves him tea and biscuits without complaint or disclaimer now that he no longer lives there. It’s not what he wanted in his wilder hopes, but it’s a comfortable enough life he’s building. It’s more than many men manage in the wake of war, his doctor tells him. John tries to let that be enough. He stops asking after the letters. 

__

But one evening he’s chatting on the phone with Harry, who sounds sober and hopeful, and she says that it’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since Clara left her, two years since John came home from Afghanistan. “A lot has happened, Johnny,” she says, and he thinks that she doesn’t even know everything there is to tell. And then he realizes, all in a rush: that he moved into 221B just after he returned, that Sherlock’s first letter was just after that. If he’s been back two years, then Sherlock should be at the flat by now. He could go to him, make him understand: John never meant to let him down. 

__

\--- 

__

Sherlock passes Mrs. Hudson when he comes home, one brisk winter afternoon. She looks sad, and Sherlock tries to remember: dates from her husband’s trial, her parents’ passings, some reason for her to look forlorn but not so distressed as to suggest a more recent cause. He calls it curiosity rather than sympathy that makes him stop, that moves him to ask. 

__

She smiles through the sadness. “I lost a dear friend on this night two years ago. The young man who lived in this apartment before you, actually.” 

__

He feels his heart rate increase. “You said that he left.” 

__

“He did, dear. He was killed a short time later. A mugging. He fought back, of course, being a soldier and all, but.” She wipes at her eyes. 

__

Sherlock hates himself -- suddenly, strongly. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Yes, John had been a bit heavier, a bit grayer-haired in the years between their meeting and the night Lestrade called Sherlock to the scene of John’s death, but the scarf, how many men wore a scarf like that with such worn trainers? Even after such an abrupt rejection, John was still wearing the damn scarf Sherlock gave him. There were motivations there that Sherlock didn’t quite understand, sentimentality and affection, but he had considered learning them once. 

__

“If a letter had arrived for John that night,” Sherlock demands, “would you have called him?” 

__

Mrs. Hudson considers, then nods. “I suppose I would have. He was always so worried about mail arriving here after he left; he asked after it often. You know, the police think he may have been on his way here the night he was killed. Why, you two may have met that evening, you were living here by then.” 

__

Sherlock rips the nearest piece of paper he can find, Mrs. Hudson’s calendar, and folds it over, writes John’s name, marks it as an urgent message to be read as soon as possible. On the inside, he writes, _John. Stay home tonight, please. Turn around. I know why you didn’t come. ~~Blunt force trauma to~~ \- _ \- He stops himself mid-scrawl. He’s wasting precious time. _Please. Be safe. And come to me, here, in two years. I’ll be waiting._

__

The folded paper disappears through the mail slot. Sherlock has never prayed like this, not even when his own life was in danger. He is vaguely aware that Mrs. Hudson has thrown her hands up at his odd behavior and gone back to her reminiscence, her door closed behind her, but all he can see, eyes closed, is John’s broken form. And that body that had been John’s, that had touched Sherlock with such longing, bore no wedding band that night nor any other sign of being loved. John hadn’t moved on, hadn’t found another, and Sherlock feels more than he’s ever known, loss and regret heavy in his chest, he feels as if he could howl with it, and 

__

\-- and then the door opens, and with it, Sherlock’s eyes, and there is John with an almost embarrassed look on his face, an apology already on his lips for coming inside without knocking. 

__

“John.” It’s all Sherlock can think to say, and he’s pulling John to him in a crushing embrace, and he doesn’t know which of them is more surprised. 

__

And Mrs. Hudson steps into the foyer, perfectly fine because John is gloriously, wondrously alive, and says, “John, back for a visit?” as if she doesn’t realize that John is there for Sherlock, to be his. 

__

“It’s okay, Sherlock,” John says quietly, calmly, into Sherlock’s shoulder. “I’m not leaving, you can let go.” 

__

Sherlock does, forces himself to take that step back. John and Mrs. Hudson greet, and she offers them tea, asks how they know one another. Later, Sherlock won’t remember John’s answer, nor how John politely declines. But he will remember exactly how beautiful John looks after he closes the door behind them and breathes and says, “Well then.” And Sherlock puts a hand on either side of his face, eyes burning, and drinks John in, gaze catching more and more frequently on John’s lips until John finally says, “Yes, Sherlock” and “I’ve only been waiting two bloody years,” and Sherlock presses his lips to John’s, unpracticed but not unsure, and fists his hands in that ridiculous, blessed scarf. 

__

“It’s nice to be home,” John says when he finally has leave to speak again. 

__

“So you’ll be staying,” Sherlock says briskly. “Don’t bother to answer, I already know that you’ve let your lease lapse. You have,” and here he pauses, looks John up and down, “four days to vacate your flat.” 

__

John simply smiles and shakes his head. “Five days if you count what’s left of today.” 

__

“I don’t,” Sherlock says seriously. He tilts John’s chin up and kisses him, more skillfully this time. “I have other plans.” 

__

John doesn’t seem inclined to disagree. 

__

“That was worth the wait,” John jokes, later, watching Sherlock catch his breath. Sherlock grins up at the ceiling. “I expected this to be more awkward, though,” John muses. 

__

“Why should it be?” Sherlock asks, sitting up now. “Although you’ve likely changed to some degree in the intervening years, you already know me, and your being here and your actions of the past hour tell me all I need to know tonight. I’ll learn the rest when you unpack your belongings here in the coming days, of course.” 

__

“Oh,” John says, and he is smiling and looks just a bit exasperated as he pulls Sherlock back down to the bed. “Of course.” 

__


End file.
